CHRIS KUTSCHERA 40 YEARS of JOURNALISM (Texts and Photos)

www.Chris-Kutschera.com

ALGERIA:
The changing world of Mzab

“Here,
it is the mosque which runs everything. The only law is
the law of the Prophet and of the holy Quran, and not
the law of the nation or any other law”, says a
shaikh of Beni Isguen.

Of all the Ibadite cities of the Mzab, Beni Isguen has
been least touched by assimilation with the wider Algerian
society. This small city of 6.800 inhabitants, protected
by high walls, still preserves institutions unique in
the Islamic world.

The Ibadites were part of the first schismatic sect in
Islam, the Kharijites, who rejected the Quranic procedure
of takhim (arbitration) after the battle of Siffin (AD658)
between the Prophet’s cousin Ali and Muawiya, governor
of Syria. Today the Ibadites survive in Oman, where they
make up the majority of the population, and in parts of
the Maghreb.

Abdullah ibn Rustum, an Ibadite of Iranian origin, set
up an “empire” in Kairouan in the 8th century,
but its descendants have dwindled to two small communities,
on the island of Jerba in Tunisia and in the Mzab, on
the edge of the southern Algerian desert.

Institutions unique in the islamic world

Beni Isguen’s “council of religious affairs”
(halka azzaba) includes the 12 key men of a community
which sought refuge in this wadi almost 1.000 years ago
to preserve its faith and its way of life. These men are
the imam, the muezzin, the fuqqara -- who teach in the
madrassa and in the mahat (lycée) -- the five men
who wash the dead and the two treasurers.

The
council of social affairs (halka doman) includes a representative
of each clan (ashira) and deals with the material affairs
of a community which attaches great importance to the
knowledge of family trees. In Beni Isguen, the oldest
clan, settled at the highest point in the city, near the
watchtower, comes from a Berber family from Tafilet. Other
clans claim they descend from Persian families.

In Ibadite society, women are completely separated from
men, spending most of their lives in their houses, while
the men virtually live in their shops. The women have
their own council, which includes the “timsiridines”
-- the women who wash the dead.

A federal council (Majlis Ami Said) unites the representatives
of the eight Ibadite cities of the Mzab: Al-Ateuf, founded
in 1.012, Bou Noura (1.046), Ghardaia (1.048), Beni Isguen
(1.347), Melika (1350), and two other cities founded
more recently -- Guerara (1631) and Berriane (1.690).
The eight town, Ouargla, has only a minority of Ibadite
inhabitants.

All details of life are ruled by Islamic law

This federal council represents an “Islamic government”
unique today. All the details of the Ibadites’ daily
life are ruled by this Islamic government, from the weight
of gold given as a dowry to a woman (maximum 60 grams)
to the length of wedding celebrations (three days).

Alcohol
is forbidden; so is smoking. A woman who goes out in the
street must be totally hidden under her veil (haik) with
only her left eye peeping through a small hole.

Infringement of the rules is punished under the tabriya,
which ranges from a kind of quarantine to exile. The latter
was a deadly sentence in the old days when an Ibadite
was expelled from the oasis in which these cities lie
into the surrounding desert. But even today the quarantine
punishment can blight a person’s life. If he comes
to the mosque, people walk away from him; and if he refuses
to apologise for his offence, he is expelled from the
mosque.

If he goes to a shop, he is not served; if he is a merchant,
people don’t buy from him; if he marries, no one
will attend his wedding; and when he dies, the council
of elders forbids the washing of his body.

But if the power of the tabriya was absolute when
the Ibadites lived in virtual isolation, things have changed
dramatically since oil was discovered in Hassi Messaoud
in 1958 and gas in Hassi R’mel in 1980.

These small cities of the Mzab have now become commercial
centres at the crossroads of southern Algeria. Thousands
of Bedouin and Algerians from the north have settled between
Beni Isguen, Ghardaia and Melika.

Thus the Ibadites are exposed to many new temptations
to break the old rules and, if they do, they can now find
a refuge in the “foreign” community which
today makes up almost half the population of the Mzab.

When asked about the future of their community, Ibadites
offer conflicting opinions. Some are quite optimistic,
claiming that “what has been living for 1.000 years,
sometimes in the face of dramatic crises, will not be
destroyed in 20 years”. “When I was a child”,
says a shaikh of Beni Isguen, “there were already
people who used to smoke secretly. Today it is the same
thing. As long as people hide themselves, there is hope;
if there were no more tabriya, it would be the end of
the world”.

Others display a pessimism which the facts seem to justify.
“We should not speak of an erosion of our traditional
values”, says a teacher, “we should be brave
enough to look at the situation as it is. We should speak
of the destruction of Mzabite society”.

With the discovery of oil and gas came outsiders with
new values. “In the old days, trade was the affair
of all”, says an Ibadite intellectual. “It
was the whole city which would organise a caravan, and
the profits were divided between all the citizens. Later
on, it still took a lifetime to make a fortune in trade,
and with this money one could only live a decent life
after retirement. Today, people build huge fortunes in
a short time, individually, apart from the community”.

Just as cement and iron are taking the place of the traditional
building materials of Mzabite architecture, so, little
by little, the moral values of the Ibadites, especially
the emphasis on social equality, are being eroded by the
conviction that everything which represents progress,
power, art and culture can come only from the West.

Leading a small group of tourists to the watchtower of
Beni Isguen, Muhammad Kerim, once a student at the Islamic
university of Zitouna in Tunis, now an official guide
to the Mzab, has an argument with a young boy who rides
a motorcycle up the narrow street along the city wall,
despite a prohibition against riding cycles inside the
city.

Muhammad Kerim mutters against these youths, and against
the changes they bring. “I have three television
sets at home”, he says. “I never watch TV.
My daughters-in-law and my sons bought them”. Showing
his white beard (he is a little under 80), he adds: “Despite
my old age, I am no longer the boss at home”.